Two 100MW battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in Texas have been brought online by independent power producer (IPP) Broad Reach Power, for participation in the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) market. 

The opportunities for energy storage in the US continue to grow and grow, but moving away from contracted revenue structures to merchant risk projects will be a challenge, especially for lenders. 

The US energy storage industry remained “remarkably resilient” during what most of us have found to be a difficult year – to say the least. Andy Colthorpe speaks with Key Capture Energy’s CEO Jeff Bishop and FlexGen’s COO Alan Grosse – two companies that made 2020 one of growth in their energy storage businesses – to hear what lessons can be learned and why economics rule.

Approval has been given to the compliance plans of two more US RTOs and ISOs to be filed under FERC Order 841, the ruling set by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) designed to open up regional grid operators’ wholesale markets to electricity storage.

A legislative package for energy storage research and development has been welcomed by the US Energy Storage Association after receiving approval from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Cleve Hill Solar Park, the joint venture (JV) of Hive Energy and Wirsol intending to develop a 350MW+ solar farm on the Kent coast of England, has yet to make any decisions regarding the battery storage element of its plans, contrary to media reports.

Deploying battery storage at grid level is relatively uncharted territory, but a number of pioneers’ projects are now in the ground. Patrick Leslie and colleagues at RES, which built some of the first wave of storage projects, teases out the key technology, finance and regulatory lessons the industry can learn from these early experiences.